~Sharan Gurung ‘Muskan’~
Translation : Raja Puniani
Like a half-burnt cigarette on ashtray
My village
Hugged by Chanakya’s shrewd fingers
Burns futilely
They only know how to be pregnant
And give heat to their belly
By dog-eared stove of history
They abort every time
Their dream of having a healthy son
There is a common shop of conserved dreams
In every lane of this village
That has infertile eyes.
(Why do the radio and television
Choose to air the promotion of contraceptive pills
In this village only?)
Every evening, this village – the eunuch womb
Curls up coolly inside the cold tombs of terror
After gulping the helpless barefooted mourns with tea
They return home late
From the funeral of their own self-respect
The brightness that leaves home every morning
With fist of passion
Returns every evening
Hanging the defeated face
Which war is fought in some way here?
Why is a certain type of war is fought out here?
The old village-shrines
Not wanting to be destroyed
Read the fog-enveloped cold faces
And merge with an unseen treaty
(To bear the wounds
Which energy booster does our village consume?)
My village can’t recognize the palace of fire
In the country of Shakunis
My village endures the burn
My village is deserted
Due to tolerance
Not due to pain
Notes-
o Chanakya- c. 350–283 BCE. Was an adviser to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta (c. 340–293 BCE), and was the chief architect of his rise to power. Kautilya and Vishnugupta, the names by which the ancient Indian political treatise called the Arthaśāstra identifies its author, is traditionally identified with Chanakya. Chanakya has been considered as the pioneer of the field of economics and political science. In the Western world, he has been referred to as The Indian Machiavelli, although Chanakya’s works predate Machiavelli’s by about 1,800 years. Chanakya was a teacher in Takṣaśila, an ancient center of learning. His works were lost near the end of the Gupta dynasty and not rediscovered until 1915.
o Shakuni- A scoundrel character of Hindu myth Mahabharata, who is a cunning gambler. He was highly responsible for provoking Kauravas, the hundred brothers, for waging war against Pandavas, the five brothers. The war is famously known as the ‘War of Kurukshetra’, because that was fought at Kurukshetra. Shakuni is in fact an mythological imagery used to denote the shrewd people who maintain their low profile but hold deep rooted nexus with state and play important diplomatic role in internal political affairs, coups and wars.
